God will never give us a gift which will render God obsolete or as only a Spectator.
“Nature abhors a vacuum.” We are by nature oriented to the good as known and any experience of the good asks for more. The giver of a gift is saying something about the giver and about the receiver as well. The one receiving the entire gift must receive also what is being said.
We long for the full as well as the good and we can come close, especially in loving relationships. We can perceive God as a bit perverse by not giving us our completion here on earth, but only glimpses of totality. In a small way, we are perverse in that we are inclined to fill up our vacuumness by asking of a gift to be the giver of fullness. Even paradise did not complete Adam and Eve. As with us, they wanted more of the good and God holds completion as God’s final gift. Until then we live in peaceful reception of what God is saying about us, that is, as humans on earth we will find everything as a gift and everyone is a gift, but not given to complete us, but keep us reaching with hands wide open.
REFLECTION
As I sit down to write this reflection, I am celebrating the smells from the two loaves of bread I have prepared with tender care and the guidance of my blood-brother, Mike’s recipe. I live in hope and so is the community as they too are surrounded by bread-breath.
Moses has been preparing his community for their entering their new homeland by instructing them about just how they should act as the holy and chosen people of God’s new revelation in a Covenant. There are many laws, instructions and liturgical observances proclaimed.
What we hear at the beginning of our First Reading for this great feast, is a great “Amen!” and communal agreement by the people to all they have heard from God through Moses. These “words” from God will be a protection from their wandering into other, (foreign) cultural ways. They will be also a reminder of who they are as God’s Holy People.
Then we hear of a liturgical experience which Moses performs to ratify that God had spoken and that the people heard and agreed to it all. Young bulls are sacrificed and Moses takes some of the blood and pours it on the altar he had constructed. The altar represents the holiness of the God Who has spoken. Moses then sprinkles some of the blood on the people representing their acceptance of their having heard and agreed to it all. He did this sprinkling after the people had heard and they received the blood as a sign of their new life as God’s chosen people.
So the liturgy of the Word took longer than even our longest readings and the sacrifice took even longer. The living out of this liturgy would be at the center of God’s relationship with Israel and the people’s response to being whom God had said they were. Blood was the “life source” and the closest thing to God as the “Life-Source” there was. Blood offered to God and shared with the people meant that they were bonded, united to God and with each other. Much of the Book of Leviticus is spent around this symbol of Holy and unholy blood and the constant need for human purification.
Our Gospel for this feast is as well, set around a celebrational liturgy. It begins with a picture of preparing for the Passover which recalls the blood of the Passover lamb being sprinkled on the door posts of the Israelites to keep them safe from the final plague in Egypt. It seems that Jesus has made reservations for a certain “upper room” and the disciples are shown the place and begins the setting for something new coming through the old.
We hear Mark’s account of the “institution Narrative”. Jesus and His disciples are recalling the great and wonderful events of the Exodus or coming out of slavery as well as the destruction of Pharaohs’s pursuing troops. The story is related with many symbols and in various forms and within the celebrating of their national past, there is a meal with unleavened bread and raising of cups of wine, all recalling who they are and Who God is for them. It is a celebration of life.
In our Roman Catholic tradition we celebrate the New Passover with great reverence for the former from which we all share. The very person of Jesus is a most wonderful gift to and for our humanity. He was really present physically as a Gift from the Infinite Giver. The Giver was revealing something of the Giver to this world, the receiver. The receiver-world is asked to say “Amen!” to what the Giver is saying about us all, the “many”. As Jesus was physically offered to the emptiness of the womb of Mary, and offered to the “many” while on earth, He continues being offered as a Gift from His Father to us, God’s “many”, not as a symbol, but as a grace-filled sacramental reality. He is as present in His offering to us as He was to these disciples surrounding Him in this Gospel narrative. In His Body we are re-membered re-united to each other as a sacred experience. We are reminded as we re-celebrate our being freed from our slaveries, that we are being brought into a sacred life, because we believe all that the Giver has said about us and who we are, because of the Body of Jesus Whose blood is the source of our new Passover-life.
“I will take the cup of salvation, and call on the name of the Lord.” Ps. 116
AN UNFORGETTABLE SUPPER
As might have been expected, the celebration of the Holy Mass has changed all down the centuries. In accordance with the times and cultures, theologians and religious leaders have highlighted some areas and overlooked others. The Mass has served as a backdrop to celebrate the crowning of Kings and Popes as well as to commemorate war victories. Great musicians have composed concerts around the Mass and people had their traditions and devotions while celebrating the mystery of the Eucharist.
After twenty centuries of growth and changing expressions of what we consider the central mystery/memorial of our Christian heritage, it might be necessary to re-live the most important elements of Christ’s Last Supper, as it was learned and celebrated by the earliest Christian communities.
The central belief that was carried away by those who attended that supper was that Christ’s followers would never remain orphans: Jesus could not leave them and they will always be in communion with Him. His presence will always be felt, in spite of all persecutions and betrayals. Christ is always alive in the midst of a Christian community. This is the secret strength of any Christian community.
Christ’s presence feeds the faith of all His followers. It will not be enough that Christians attend this supper; they must eat and partake of the celebration. To feed on and grow in such union with Him his disciples must get together and listen to his words and receive in communion the food and drink that would give them a Christian life style.
We should never forget that being in communion with Jesus means hearing the call of someone who died for others. Jesus made it that clear when he said: This is my Body, this is my Blood which will be shed for the salvation of others. It would certainly be a contradiction if we received Him in communion, while remaining selfishly preoccupied with our own personal interests.
There is nothing more central and decisive for Christ’s followers than the celebration of Christ’s supper. Hence we should preserve it so carefully. If it is well celebrated, the Eucharist will make us grow in union with Him; it will give strength to our lives and make us one with the Gospel; it will foster in us a spirit of service towards all, while building up the hope of a final encounter with Him.
THE EUCHARIST AND OUR CURRENT CRISIS
All Christians know it very well. The Sunday Mass can easily become a “religious safe place” to hide from all our conflicts during the week. The Mass has almost become a meeting place to relax from the stress, problems and bad news that we have been subjected to during the week.
At times, we become sensitive to anything regarding the dignity of the celebration, but we easily forget about the significance and implications of the Lord’s Supper. We don’t like when the priest does not adhere strictly to the ritual celebration, but, at the same time, we follow the routine without ever responding to the summons of the Gospel readings.
The risk is always the same: we receive communion with our hearts without ever thinking about our suffering brethren, as if we had nothing in common. We share the Eucharistic bread while we keep ignoring the millions of brethren who don’t have bread, justice or any kind of future.
In the next few years, the current crisis will get worse than anything we had feared. The endless list of measures and sacrifices that will be imposed on all of us will only serve to widen the existing inequality among most of us. People with whom we shared living standards will get poorer and their future will become more and more uncertain.
We shall soon see immigrants deprived of their medical assistance, sick people unable to resolve their health problems or buy medications; many families will be forced to beg for help from charitable organizations, their homes will be taken away, while young people will have no future. It is almost unavoidable. We shall have just a choice: either we become more and more selfish or choose to embrace Christian solidarity.
The celebration of the Blessed Eucharist in the midst of this crisis might be a chance for us to become conscientious about our brothers and sisters. We need to get free from our selfish culture in which we have grown accustomed to think only of our own interests and learn to become more humane and generous. The whole Eucharistic mystery is orientated towards building up a human family.
It does not make any sense listening every Sunday of the year to the Gospel of Jesus, without answering to his repeated calls. We cannot go on praying to our Father to give us “our daily bread” without ever thinking of the millions of children and other people who cannot get it. We can’t go on receiving Holy Communion without becoming more generous by showing true solidarity with the victims of our crisis. Finally, we cannot exchange the Christian sign of peace without giving also a hand to those who are suffering most the effects of our crisis.